Student Mobility & Credit Transfer: A National and Global Survey pot

Student Mobility & Credit Transfer A National and Global Survey Sean Junor and Alex Usher June 2008     Student Mobility and Credit Transfer: A National and Global Survey By Sean Junor and Alex Usher This paper was originally produced for the Canadian Council on Learning as a background paper for their 2007 publication Post-Secondary Education in Canada: Strategies for Success. The Educational Policy Institute thanks the Council for its financial support in the preparation of this document. The Educational Policy Institute is a non-profit organization based in Virginia Beach, Virginia with offices in Toronto, Ontario and Melbourne, Australia. EPI is dedicated to the study of issues related to the expansion of quality educational opportunities. Visit www.educationalpolicy.org for more information. Copyright 2008 Educational Policy Institute. Contents may be photocopied and distributed with attribution. EducationalPolicyInstitute  2 Introduction Technological advances in communication and transportation have increased educational opportunities for post-secondary education students around the globe. Individuals and information now travel quicker and cheaper between countries and continents. Post-secondary institutions no longer have a local, jurisdictional or even domestic focus; their vision is global. Furthermore, governments and employers recognize that the workforce of the future must include well-trained, globally aware professionals with international work experience who can solve economic and social problems. At the same time, students and faculty are becoming increasingly interested in spending time in different academic environments, often in foreign surroundings. The length of stay can range from one semester to the pursuit of a full academic credential. A proper protocol (or mechanism) designed to recognize previous academic performance is essential in ensuring a full range of student mobility options. It is for this reason that credit transfer and student mobility are linked. Credit transfer systems provide the lubricant to ensure seamless academic mobility. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to explain student mobility and credit transfer in a conjoined fashion. The first half of the paper will center on student mobility and what it means to the post-secondary system. The barriers which prevent the free flow of students from jurisdiction to jurisdiction will also be focused upon. Additional sections will examine the role finance, information and most importantly – academics – play in the restriction of opportunity. Next, the paper will investigate measures designed by post-secondary institutions and governments to assist increased mobility opportunities. The mobility section will end with a detailed analysis of the Canadian performance on select mobility measures and provide additional information on the mobility picture in the main international post-secondary education systems (e.g. United States and the United Kingdom). The second half of the paper will examine how post-secondary education credits act as a form of knowledge “currency” and how the issue of credit recognition is best seen as a policy issue which requires the “exchange” of one institution’s credits into a currency that other institutions can freely accept. It will examine how credit transfer works in various Canadian jurisdictions, the role played by Credit Transfer Councils in certain jurisdictions and how transfer information is ultimately conveyed to the student, parent, guidance counsellor or post-secondary institution. Finally, a detailed analysis of credit transfer systems in Europe, Australia, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, the United States and the European Union will be provided. EducationalPolicyInstitute  3 PartI:StudentMobility Student mobility is defined as any academic mobility which takes place within a student’s program of study in post-secondary education. The length of absence can range from a semester to the full program of study. There are two main types of student mobility: mobility for an entire program of study (diploma or degree mobility); and for part of a program (credit mobility). This paper will examine the latter two types of mobility. Students studying in multiple academic settings believe that a series of benefits will accrue from their studies. These individuals may, for example, be interested in strengthening their personal development, increasing their academic opportunities or enhancing their career prospects. Mobile students believe that a diversified education provides them with increased confidence, maturity, linguistic competence and academic ability. Exposure to other cultural surroundings is also perceived as being important (King 2004, Malysheva 2005). Higher education institutions likewise benefit from student mobility. The learning environment for all students is often greatly enhanced, as returning students and incoming exchange students bring an added dimension to the classroom. European countries have benefited for the past two decades from a regional student mobility initiative known as Erasmus (European Action Scheme for the Mobility of University Students). This program, which will be discussed in greater detail later in the paper, is the operational framework for the European Commission's initiatives in higher education and in some cases makes transfer of credit across national borders easier than transfer of credits within them. As a result, a number of European countries (e.g. United Kingdom) are revisiting (or recently have revisited) their student mobility policies to encourage mobility internally and throughout the European Union (EU) to build off the success of Erasmus. These countries are also trying to expand the influx of students from their former colonies and reach out to new markets. In the Asia-Pacific region, institutions can join the UMAP (University Mobility in Asia Pacific) program designed to promote regional student mobility. UMAP membership includes over 30 countries, territories, and special administrative regions. This membership also includes 24 American institutions – located in 16 different states. BarrierstoStudentMobility Barriers to student mobility are not entirely different from barriers preventing individuals from attending post-secondary education in general. Youth who choose not to go on to post-secondary education cite a variety Mobilestudents believethata diversifiededucation providesthemwith increasedconfidence, maturity,linguistic competenceand academicability. EducationalPolicyInstitute  4 of reasons for their decision. Roughly three major “sets” of barriers effect these decisions. These are, in order of increasing importance: information/motivation, financial, and academic (Junor and Usher 2004). Insufficient information on study possibilities outside one’s local area may prevent students from studying away from home. With respect to semester or year-abroad opportunities, home and host institutions often do not provide enough information on mobility opportunities and do not assure students that they will receive the necessary support before going abroad, during their studies at foreign institutions and after their return. Many qualified students may fear that they could lose academic standing by taking different credits at another institution. Lack of adequate financial resources may also be a very important factor in a student’s decision not to leave home in order to attend PSE. The issue of finances refers not only to a shortage of money; it also pertains to student lifestyles (in particular, part-time employment that students are afraid to lose by going elsewhere) and future issues (e.g., students can lose tuition fees paid to their home university if they go to study elsewhere). However, financial support can be provided to minimize the influence of financial barriers, and students can receive funding to cover their expenses from institutions and national or international funds. Academic barriers to mobility largely consist of two main components – lack of academic qualification and the absence of credit recognition. Post- secondary students face the demand for different academic qualifications required for entry into programs abroad – this is likely less of an issue for those students interested in taking courses or credits only for a short period of time. The second issue, which will be explored in full later in the paper, is non- transferability of credits. Post-secondary students maybe reluctant to attempt a semester or year away from their home institution if they are not certain they will receive full credit value for their studies. There are a few additional barriers that prevent full mobility inside an increasingly global post-secondary system. General language proficiency and cultural integration (culture shock) often hold individuals back from choosing to study abroad. The issue of cultural integration is not limited to students studying abroad. It is also a common barrier for many first- generation, visible-minority or Aboriginal students inside various countries, including Canada. Generallanguage proficiencyand culturalintegration (cultureshock)often holdindividualsback fromchoosingto studyabroad. EducationalPolicyInstitute  5 Financial Measures Promoting Student Mobility We will return to issues of academic barriers to mobility in Part II of this paper, which deals with credit transfer. Credit transfer is not the only barrier that governments and other funders can play in role in helping students to overcome. As noted above, financial barriers to mobility are also substantial, but private foundations, post-secondary institutions and governments all provide varying levels of support to encourage or enhance post-secondary student mobility throughout home countries and around the globe. There are two main categories of student aid programs designed to encourage mobility–portable aid targeting intra-state (i.e. domestic) mobility and portable aid targeting inter-state (i.e. international) mobility. Domestic mobility programs do not appear to be a priority for many national or local governments. In fact, in many parts of the world there are actually financial barriers erected for non-local, domestic students in the form of differential tuition fees. Student aid designed to increase international mobility, on the other hand, is relatively widespread. The four best examples of this type of aid are the Fulbright US Student Program, the Chevening Scholarship in the United Kingdom, Australian Scholarships and the financial component of the EU’s Erasmus program, all of which were designed to promote global mobility. The Fulbright U.S. Student Program is the largest American exchange program offering opportunities for students and young professionals to undertake international graduate study, advanced research, university teaching, and teaching in elementary and secondary schools worldwide. Approximately 3,500 students from over 150 countries receive Fulbright awards including 1,200 American students from all fields of study. The Chevening Scholarships program is the premier British government scholarships scheme for international students. Chevening is funded by the Foreign and Commonwealth Office in the United Kingdom. Significant contributions are also made by UK higher education institutions, the private sector, other government departments and devolved administrations (i.e. the Welsh and Scottish governments). The program is administered by the British Council and assists over 1,700 students annually with a scholarship budget of just over £33.4 million ($76.5 million) (Foreign and Commonwealth Office 2006). Australian Scholarships is an initiative of the Australian Government to promote education cooperation and development in the Asia-Pacific region. There are three main components of this merit-based award program: Development Scholarships – undergraduate and graduate, Leadership Awards – postgraduate and fellowships and the Endeavour programme. In 2006, the Australian government committed an additional A$1.4 billion EducationalPolicyInstitute  6 ($1.32 billion CDN) to the program to assist an additional 19,000 top flight students from around the region until 2011. The maximum award available is A$250,000 ($235,000 CDN) for PhD programs. The Erasmus program provides European students with the opportunity to study outside their home country in another European country for a period of between three and 12 months. Each year approximately 140,000 students receive grants to study inside Europe at various institutions. The program has an annual budget of €190 million ($294.5 million CDN) to support students. It should be noted, however, that this is not the only form of assistance available to EU residents who move from one country to another. EU law requires every country to treat nationals from other EU countries identically to citizens of its own when it comes to issues such as social assistance. As a result, students who move from one country to another are also eligible to benefit from the host country’s student financial aid system (this is the inverse of student aid mobility provisions in Canada, where provinces are required to treat their own citizens identically regardless of where they study). Depending on the relative generosity of the student aid systems of the student’s home and destination country’s student aid systems, this can be a very important source of support as well. Canada provides very little of either type of aid. Programs designed to facilitate intra-national mobility are few and far between. There are only two truly notable examples of this type of activity. The first is the Council of Ministers of Education (CMEC) Explore bursary program – which offers students an opportunity study in a second language inside of Canada. The second is the Canadian Merit Scholarship Foundation (CMSF) program. Though the CMSF does not have inter-provincial mobility as one of its main goals, the fact that it grants $75,000 scholarships over four years and stipulates leaving home as one of the de facto conditions of the award, makes it this country’s closest thing to a financial mobility incentive. Canadian student aid designed to promote global mobility is largely disjointed and often consists of very modest sums of money. Many Canadian colleges and universities (e.g. University of Ottawa’s Student Mobility fund and University of British Columbia Student Mobility Awards) have one-off scholarships and awards to encourage students to take a semester or year abroad. Canadian provinces and territories (e.g. The Ministry of Education of Quebec Student Mobility Bursary program) also EducationalPolicyInstitute  7 offer some financial measures to support students pursing a portion of their studies abroad. Results: Data on Student Mobility Data Limitations Student mobility, whether it be inward mobility (i.e., from one domestic institution to another) or outward mobility (i.e., Canadian students studying abroad), can be difficult to measure. Statistics Canada’s data collection in this area is notably deficient in this area. Canadian post-secondary institutions, particularly community colleges, report unit record data to Statistics Canada in an inconsistent manner. Some institutions report various student characteristics (e.g., age, gender and province of origin), while others report only the total number of students enrolled, making additional analysis on the aggregate file impossible. Statistics on student mobility therefore need to be viewed with caution, as they can only approximate, rather than reflect, the real situation. The state of knowledge on Canadian students pursing credits or credentials abroad is even worse. There is no single accessible database tracking such developments. The credit data reside with each Canadian institution that has established agreements with international institutions. The Association of Universities and Colleges of Canada collects information from its members and has constructed the Canadian University International Exchange Agreements Database (CUE). Data on credentials are best accessed through either the Institute for International Education (IIE) or UNESCO – but neither one is considered infallible. Until 2001, the IIE published data on the number of Canadians studying in the U.S. by state and by institution, but the data are no longer available due to security concerns. As a result, it is largely unclear how Canada compares with other educational world leaders in terms of student mobility. The various Canadian survey instruments from which data on barriers to post-secondary education can be extrapolated – e.g., School Leavers’ Survey/School Leavers’ Follow-up Survey (SLS/SLF), 2000 Youth in Transition Survey (YITS), 2002 Post-Secondary Education Participation Survey (PEPS) – have never asked students directly about mobility barriers. For all the flaws in Canadian data collection, the collection and availability of data from other countries is often a problem as well, especially when it comes to ensuring cross-nationally comparable statistics. For example, it is unclear whether comparable local and national data is finding its way to various international datasets- UNESCO, OECD and EUROSTAT. Various studies (Lanzendorf and Teichler 2003 and Kelo et al 2006) have Thestateof knowledgeon Canadianstudents pursingcreditsor credentialsabroadis evenworse.Thereis nosingleaccessible databasetracking suchdevelopments. EducationalPolicyInstitute  8 identified the problem as larger than just a national one. Many European countries (and increasingly Canada) are not reporting highly relevant and politically sensitive data at all. Furthermore, data quality differs strikingly by level of post-secondary education. Finally, the lack of uniform definitions on all post-secondary education terms presents a problem to the user and the reader. Canadian mobility data There are several potential metrics by which to measure the degree of student mobility in Canada. Traditionally, it has been measured in terms of inter-provincial mobility (which is the only statistic regularly tracked by Statistics Canada), but this is a fairly restrictive definition of mobility. It could equally be measured as the percentage of students who move away from their parents’ home to study or the percentage who move more than a certain distance away from their parents’ home. Students moving abroad to study is also a factor in the mobility equation. The sections below look at mobility from each of these perspectives. Leaving home to study in Canada At the most basic level of mobility – that is, simply moving from away from the parental home in order to study - the Canadian Undergraduate Survey Consortium (2005) and the Canadian College Student Survey (2005) both show that approximately 40 per cent of college and university students live away from their parents. According to the undergraduate survey consortium data this figure appears to be largely unchanged over the past six years. Another pair of Canadian studies have further investigated student relocation patterns for academic pursuits. The 2003-04 EKOS Canadian post-secondary student financial survey Investing in Their Future: A Survey of Student and Parental Support for Learning and the Canada College Student Survey provide the best available data on this subject. According to the EKOS survey, just over one-third of post-secondary students – including 38 percent of university students and 21 percent of college students - indicated that they moved from one city to another to attend a post-secondary institution. These studies also show that students who relocate are most likely to be in their mid-20s. In fact, four in ten students between 20 and 25 years of age reported moving. Younger students (under 18) were the least likely to move (17 per cent), while students aged over 30 were only slightly more likely to do so (20 per cent). This is not surprising, since the majority of older students would be fairly settled in their lives, while younger students, in part due to the significant number of college students (including those attending CEGEPs in Quebec) who are less likely to need to move for school. Fourintenstudents between20and25 yearsofagereported moving.Younger students(under18) weretheleastlikely tomove(17percent), whilestudentsaged over30wereonly slightlymorelikelyto doso(20percent). EducationalPolicyInstitute  9 Inter-Provincial Student Flows Students often choose to study outside of their province of residence, for many reasons – a desire to move away from home, a desire to study in a program unavailable in their province of residence, etc. As indicated above, this decision is much more common among university students than college students. At the university level, just over one in ten students leaves his or her province of origin to study; at the college level, the number is not much more than one in 50. The number for university students has risen somewhat over the past decade, but for most of the past 20 years the proportion of students studying out of province has remained within the range of eight to ten per cent. The most recent available figures suggest that the number is now 12 per cent, but the rise in this percentage has been accompanied by a rise in the percentage of students whose origin is “unknown” or “unreported,” so the increase may be due to data irregularity rather than actual changes. Table 1 below describes the in- and out-migration of full-time university students for all provinces in the 2003-04 academic year. The data in this table show that the majority of jurisdictions (i.e., seven of ten) are net “exporters” of students, and only three provinces (New Brunswick, Nova Scotia and Quebec) “import” more students than they “export”. Table1–Full‐TimeCanadianUniversityStudentMigrationin2003‐04a Province Totalnumberof students Totalnumberof studentsarrivingto study Totalnumberof studentsleavingto study  Netgain(+)orloss (‐) Out‐of‐province studentsasa percentageoftotal enrolment NL 14,446 1,179 2,342‐1,163 8% PE 3,251 608 1,628‐1,020 20% NS 36,237 10,627 4,397 6,230 29% NB 21,123 4,862 4,460 402 23% QC 161,775 12,687 5,988 6,699 8% ON 313,654 15,550 17,115‐1,615 5% MB 27,846 1,183 1,921 ‐738 4% SK 26,479 1,205 2,278 ‐1,073 5% AB 65,034 4,985 5,272 ‐287 8% BC 65,754 2,260 9,695 ‐7,435 3% Source: Association of Universities and Colleges of Canada Note: a The number of students currently labelled as having home residence of “unknown” or “not applicable” is quite high. The problem is particularly noticeable in the provinces of Alberta and British Columbia, where the University of Alberta and Simon Fraser University block reported significant segments of data under these categories in 2003-2004. [...]... geographic mobility than they have with educational laddering between further and higher education (as, arguably, has been the case in Canada, where similar considerations drove the development of the British Columbia and Alberta credit- transfer systems) This has particularly been the case in Australia and the United States In Australia, a national framework for credit transfer between the two vocational... institutions are to begin to see mobility as a priority Establish a merit base scholarship to recruit global academic talent In order for Canada to compete with other international countries (Australia, the United Kingdom and the United States) the country needs to create significant financial awards to recruit and retain global students This program would need to target undergraduate, graduate and post-graduate... provincial and territorial governments to address barriers to mobility It is also unclear what the demand for increased credit transfer is in Canada There have been no national surveys asking students any questions about potential mobility around Canada or outside the borders Furthermore, as the demographic picture changes (a decline in the traditional 18-21 age cohort) in Canada, it is likely that more... Prince Edward Island – and Holland College Also, the University of Prince Edward Island has committed to recognize credits earned at any university in Canada Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island do not produce transfer guides New Brunswick produces a Guide to Transfer of Credit that documents available credit transfer between New Brunswick's community colleges and universities Newfoundland and Labrador... borne partially out of choice - Australia is trying to prove student mobility is not a restricted regional activity and can be an intercontinental phenomenon However, the decision has also been made partially out of necessity Since over 40 percent of all Australian international students are from China and India and increasingly those students have quality domestic educational opportunities and may not... to deal with the issue of pre-requisite transfer Table 5 illustrates how credits in the Canadian post-secondary system are treated 2 Saskatchewan Council for Admissions and Transfer (SaskCAT), March 2007 (http://www.saskcat.ca/faq/)   24 Educational Policy Institute  Table 5 – Canadian Post‐Secondary Education Credit Transfer Overview  Jurisdiction  British Columbia  Alberta  Saskatchewan  Manitoba ... students who have studied abroad often pursue a higher degree, have a greater chance of employment upon graduation and also have a greater chance of entering a degree-related job, having a professional occupation status, and earning upwards of £20,000 ($50,000 CDN) per annum According to data from UNESCO, the number of Canadian students studying abroad has nearly doubled over the past a decade In 1990-91,... 20,000 Canadians studying abroad at the tertiary level, and by 2001-02 (the last year for which data are available), the number had grown to just under 39,000 It is unclear how many of these students have left Canada to pursue an entire degree and how many are simply going abroad for a year or a semester, as UNESCO data do not distinguish between students in these two situations By far the most popular... credential A credential (i.e., diploma and/ or degree) is awarded after a student has successfully completed all of the curricular requirements, one of which is normally the accumulation of a minimum number of credits (assuming that a credit system exists) In a traditional four-year degree, one-quarter of the total required credits are available in a typical year of study, and modules, each with a certain... in Italy – the second most popular destination spot for Americans The remaining three most popular destinations are: Spain, France and Australia Other international examples Australia The last three decades have seen significant growth in the number of international students arriving to study at Australian post-secondary education institutions In the mid-1980s less than five percent of the total student . Mobility and Credit Transfer: A National and Global Survey By Sean Junor and Alex Usher This paper was originally produced for the Canadian Council. Columbia Student Mobility Awards) have one-off scholarships and awards to encourage students to take a semester or year abroad. Canadian provinces and territories